A Cowboy Worth Loving (Canton County Cowboys 1)

by Charlene Bright

  There was a little chill that had crept into the air as the sun went down, not biting cold or winter bluster, but just enough to remind them that the season was finally changing from long, hot summer days to long, crisp autumn nights. Gavin wished he was out riding Satan, alone.

  Brance parked the pickup in a lot at the end of Main Street, and the four of them got out. Lucy walked as far away from him as she could get, and he was okay with that. Kayla was still talking Brance’s ear off, but for now it seemed harmless enough. Gavin told himself he could talk to him tonight when they got home. Right now, he was just enjoying the feel of the crisp air and the crunch of the vibrantly colored leaves that littered the sidewalks underneath his boots. By this time next month the trees would stand naked, and another month after that, they would be dusted with the light powder of early snow that occasionally visited them in November.

  Gavin loved this town. He loved the ranching community they lived in and most of the people that lived here with them. He’d thought he wanted something different once, but that had worked out very badly. He’d finally returned home, after practically doing battle to get there, and he’d licked his wounds and started over. All of this stuff with Tuck and court made him worry that one of these days there would be no home to return to. Their first court date was in October, less than a month away. He had to wonder if he would get to see the way the light blanket of snow hugged the curves of the land his family had been a part of for so long ever again.

  They meandered down the busy street. Children were racing around laughing and playing, and adults that he’d known his entire life were admiring the displays that all the businesses had put in their windows just for this one night. There were craft booths and little stands that sold funnel cakes and candied apples. There was everything from a beer and wine garden to an espresso cart on wheels serving up specialty coffees and hot chocolate for the kids. A mixture of delectable aromas filled the air, and even in the mood Gavin was in at the moment, it was hard not to be drawn in.

  “Wow! Everything is so festive,” Lucy said as they walked through the little park in the center of the main square. The benches were decorated with streamers that fluttered in the wind, and the big ceramic pots that adorned the square had been filled with bright orange, gold and yellow wildflowers picked from every ranch in the county.

  “Yeah, tonight is kind of a big deal for our little town,” Kayla said. Her face brightened as an older woman with fire engine red hair approached them then and she squealed, “Miss Myrtle!”

  “Well if it ain’t the Walkers and that bull rider who’s been gone so long I can’t even recall his name.”

  Brance took hold off his hat with one hand and took the older lady’s hand with the other. He bent at the waist and kissed it and then looked directly into her eyes as he said, “Miss Myrtle, that breaks my heart. There wasn’t a day I was gone that I didn’t pine for you.”

  The old woman waved her hand at him and rolled her eyes, but in spite of her protests, the scarlet color of her face told the real story. Brance Duncan could still charm the pants off of them, young or old.

  Myrtle kissed Kayla on the cheek and gave Gavin a hug. “How are you sweeties? I heard about that rattlesnake Tuck Stevenson trying to take away y’all’s land. Who does that man think he is? I ain’t trusted him a lick since he blew into this town trying to act like he was a part of it. I found out his folks hail from Oklahoma! He ain’t even a Texan!”

  Gavin smiled. Miss Myrtle was one of the people that gave Canton County and Collinswood its color and made him love it here so much. “We’re doing fine, Miss Myrtle,” Gavin told her. “Tuck Stevenson isn’t taking anything away from us without a fight.”

  “Now that we have Lucy on our side, we’re armed and ready for him.” Kayla said confidently. Miss Myrtle turned to look at Lucy.

  “Well hello dear. I’m Myrtle Mitchell. My husband was mayor of this town for over thirty years before he left us, God rest his soul. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.” Myrtle knew everyone in Collinswood and everything about everyone in Canton County. It was obvious from the look on her face that she wasn’t happy she didn’t know who Lucy was, at least.

  “Lucy Lancaster,” she said, holding out her hand. Myrtle touched it and let it go, but her eyes were still on Lucy’s face. It was obvious to the rest of them who knew Myrtle so well that she was waiting for an explanation as to who Lucy was, or at least trying to see a resemblance to kin folk she might know in her eyes.

  When Lucy didn’t say anything further, Kayla said, “Lucy’s an attorney, Miss Myrtle. She’s gonna help us with our fight against Tuck and the state. She works for a big firm in Houston, and she wins all of her cases.” Kayla smiled at Lucy, who looked embarrassed by the praise.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Miss Myrtle said. “You surely are a pretty young thing to be a lawyer. I thought you were here with one of these old cowboys. I must say, I was hoping it was Gavin and not this Romeo here.”

  Brance covered his heart with his hand and said, “It feels like the arrow went right through it.”

  Myrtle ignored him as Kayla said, “They’re both gonna wish Lucy was with them in a minute if they don’t already.” She giggled and went on to say, “Here comes Trudy Hamilton, and she’s already seen you both. It’s too late to run.”

  Gavin cringed and literally considered running. He looked at Brance’s face and could see he was thinking the same.

  “Well then, I’ll make like Robert E. Lee and beat a hasty retreat,” Myrtle said with a tight smile. “It was right nice to see you all, and I’m sure I’ll talk to you again before the night is over. Miss Lancaster, where are you staying?”

  “Over at Miss Hildie’s.”

  “Wonderful. I hope you enjoy our little town.” She walked away hastily then, and Gavin was right on the verge of following her. Kayla was right, though; it was too late.

  “Gavin Walker? That is you, isn’t it?” Seeing his out, Brance grinned at his friend. Having no other choice, Gavin turned toward the sound of the voice. Trudy was the daughter of the richest and most powerful ranchers in Texas. Their ranch took up over thirty thousand acres of Canton County, and Trudy had been obsessed with Gavin since they were ten years old. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty, because she was, by Hollywood standards. She wasn’t even thirty years old and yet her lips were pumped full of collagen, and her most recent breast augmentation looked like it put her in danger of falling over forward.. Everything she did or said had to do with money… always.

  “Hi Trudy,” he said, taking a tiny step back away from her.

  “Well, I declare. I thought you’d gone off and got lost like you did a few years back. Where have you been?” He willed himself not to flinch as she stepped in for a hug. Her massive hard breasts crushed against his chest, and she gripped onto his shoulders so tightly that he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

  “I’ve been around,” he managed to squeak out before she went on again.

  “Well you’re gonna have to dance with me tonight, and I’ll tell Mama we need to have you out to the ranch for Sunday dinner. Blake and I broke up; as I’m sure you’ve heard. He just wasn’t Hamilton husband material.”

  Gavin heard Blake had broken up with her and was already married to the daughter of an oil baron out of Dallas. But he cared little enough about it all to comment on it. He was trembling at the thought of having to dance with her or, worse yet, share dinner with her parents.

  "And Kayla, look at you, you’re practically grown,” Trudy said, using a voice one might use on a twelve-year-old.

  Kayla rolled her eyes. She was never one to be phony. “I’m twenty-two, Trudy. I’ve been grown for a while.”

  “Brance Duncan, give me a hug!” Brance looked like he’d rather eat a bug, but he politely hugged her, escaping quicker than Gavin had and avoiding the breast crush. Then she turned her sights on Lucy and said, “And who are you, dear? Are you here with Brance?”


  Gavin knew as soon as he did it that he would somehow regret it. But faced with having to dance with Trudy and listen to her drone on about her high society life and friends was just too much for him. He chose the lesser of two evils. He put his arm around Lucy’s waist and closed the foot between them. He felt her body stiffen, and he was sure that if Trudy had looked at her face, she’d seen the shock or horror or whatever was there as he said, “No, she’s with me. This is my fiancée, Lucy Lancaster. Lucy, this is Trudy, an old friend.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Your fiancée?” Trudy asked. She was looking back and forth between Lucy and Gavin as if she didn’t believe him.

  “Yep,” Gavin said, hoping she would leave it at that. He could feel Lucy tense even more underneath the touch of the arm he had wrapped around her waist. Trudy glanced at Lucy’s left hand and back at Gavin.

  “How long have you been engaged?” she asked, suspiciously.

  Gavin glanced at Lucy. Her face was impassive. She didn’t look like a happily engaged woman, but she wasn’t exactly scoffing, either. She had no way of knowing that Trudy’s father supplied him with most of what was left of his income. He couldn’t turn Trudy down outright. For a cowboy in this county, that was financial suicide. Trudy’s father poured money into the community, but if you wronged his daughter, he’d be just as happy to find someone outside of it that could do the same job.

  “Just a couple of days,” he said. “The ring I bought her was too big.” He looked at Lucy again and tried to convey the importance of the ruse in that single glance. Then he said, “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll make it up to you.”

  With a cocked eyebrow and an expression Gavin couldn’t read, Lucy surprised him by saying, “See to it that you do.” Then she turned back toward Trudy and with a sweet smile she said, “Silly cowboy. He bought me a size nine ring. The people at the jewelry store must have thought he was marrying an Amazon.” She sounded just like the big city snob Gavin had expected her to be when he first met her. But she was doing this for him for some strange reason.

  He smiled, hoping that it looked sincere, and he said, “I never had cause to buy a ring before. I guess I should have taken Kay with me.” It was the first time he glimpsed his sister’s face since the lie had slipped through his lips. Kayla was looking at them all like they’d lost their minds. Brance just looked amused.

  “I think it’s best if you do these sorts of things on your own,” Kayla said. “We should get going before all of the tri-tip sells out. I’m starving. It was as nice to see you as ever, Trudy.” That was Kayla’s way of saying that she wasn’t going to perpetuate the lie and that it was never nice to see Trudy, either. Trudy may not have gotten it, but Gavin did.

  “Yes, we should get going,” he said.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see y’all later when the dancing starts,” Trudy said, giving Lucy another suspicious glance. “Congratulations.”

  Gavin pulled Lucy in tighter against him. He hated to admit it, but she felt damned good against his hip. “Thank you, Trudy.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Lucy said. They turned to walk toward the tri-tip stand, and when they were halfway there, Lucy looked over her shoulder and said, “She’s gone. Now, if you don’t mind letting go of me?” Gavin turned her loose. She smoothed down her blouse and said, “What the heck was that about?”

  “I’m sorry,” Gavin told her. “That woman makes me crazy. She’s been making me crazy since I was ten years old.”

  “Okay, but your fiancée?”

  “You couldn’t possibly understand until you had that woman pawing all over you.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing that though,” Brance said with one of his lecherous grins. Lucy and Gavin both gave him an incredulous look, and Kayla rolled her eyes.

  Gavin narrowed his eyes at his friend and turned his attention back to Lucy. “I haven’t seen her in almost a year, and it’ll be that long until I see her again, at least. If you’ll do this favor for me tonight, I’ll be eternally grateful.” Lucy hadn’t opened her mouth yet, but when she looked like she was going to resist, he said, “I won’t even mention how I pulled you out of that horrible wreckage.”

  Lucy sighed. “Okay, fine. Just for tonight and just for your friend, Trudy.”

  “She is not my friend!”

  “Whatever she is. All I’m really agreeing to do here is dance with you once or twice and answer Trudy’s intrusive questions to the best of my ability.” She sounded like she was reciting a business contract.

  “Thank you,” he told her with another one of the smiles he reserved for times like this. Gavin knew that women found him attractive, and when he set his mind to charming one, he rarely missed his mark. However, he could see by looking at Lucy’s face that, whatever the reason was she was helping him, it had nothing to do with her being captivated by his charm. His arrow had fallen short there.

  “I need to eat; I’m starving,” she said. Brance was still doing nothing to hide his amusement, and Kayla looked as confused as Gavin was about why Lucy had agreed to go along with it. None of them said anymore about it though. Instead, they followed Kayla until she reached the tri-tip sandwich booth. She talked to the man barbecuing and asked about his wife, and she talked to the two teenagers serving asking them about school. Finally, they got their food and found a table underneath one of the lighted trees in the courtyard.

  As they ate, Brance lost his tickled expression over the comedy show and replaced it with a serious one as he said, “So is Trudy’s dad really the only one bringing business your way?”

  “Pretty much,” Gavin told him. “I been breaking a colt for Grayson Abernathy here and there, but that’s it.”

  “What happened? Before I left you were so busy you had to turn business away.”

  “Tuck Stevenson happened,” Kayla said with a scowl. “That man is like the plague.”

  “Did I hear my name?” The foursome looked up to see the man himself standing next to their table.

  Kayla glared at him and said, “We were just talking about how the value of our property went down when they started letting just anyone buy land in this county.”

  Tuck smiled. He was not a bad looking older man. He was only an inch or two shorter than Gavin and still had a full head of light blonde hair. His eyes were dark, which was the first thing about him that made people take pause. With the light skin and hair, the dark brown eyes and dark lashes stood out. It wasn’t the color of his eyes that bothered Gavin, though; it was the predatory look he always seemed to have in them. When he smiled, and showed off the perfectly polished veneers that he’d likely paid a fortune for, the smile never seemed to reach his eyes.

  “That’s no way to talk about your neighbors, child. You might need to borrow a cup of sugar or something one day and then what?”

  Kayla started to say something else, but before she could get it out, Lucy told her in a quiet voice and without looking up at Tuck, “Kayla, this is probably not a good idea.”

  Gavin was eating his sandwich. He could see Tuck out of the corner of his eye, but he was trying not to look up at him as well. “We don’t have anything else to say to you, so you’re welcome to move along,” Kayla finally told him. Gavin continued looking at his sandwich as if he were fascinated by it, but Tuck wasn’t going to make things easy on him tonight, as usual.

  He heard the older man chuckle and then he heard him say, “I guess I won’t begrudge you your sass, honey. It seems to me like you’ve at least got more balls than the men you spend your time with.”

  That was when Gavin came up out of his seat so quickly that he nearly knocked Lucy off the bench she was sitting on next to him. Brance was on his feet, too. Gavin felt his sister reach up and put her hand on his right arm, trying to urge him back down. He shook her hand off and reached out for Tuck who didn’t even try and get out of the way. Grabbing the older man by the front of his shirt, Gavin shoved him roughly back against the tree they were sitting next to. Brance stood a foot or so behind
him, waiting to see if his help was going to be needed. This wouldn’t be the first tussle that he and Gavin had gotten into together, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.

  With his face mere inches from Tuck’s, Gavin said, “Do not talk to my sister ever again about anything. Stay away from her and stay away from our ranch. If you have something to say to either one of us, you can say it through our attorney. If I see you with one foot on my land…”

  “Your land?” Tuck said, still smiling. “We’ll see about that.”

  Gavin tightened his grip on Tuck’s shirt and pulled back his fist.

  “Gavin, let him go.” Gavin heard Colt’s voice. He continued to hold onto Tuck as he processed it. This man made him see nothing but red. He hadn’t even noticed that a small crowd had gathered around them. Everyone was waiting to see if there was going to be a fight. Colt stepped over so that he was in Gavin’s line of sight. “He’s not worth the trouble he’s looking to cause you,” Colt told him in a calm voice. Colt knew about Gavin’s past. He was only one of two people alive who did. Brance was the other one, but Brance wasn’t the law, and he wasn’t as levelheaded as Colt was. He looked like he was spoiling for a fight.

  Gavin hadn’t taken his eyes off of Tuck’s face. The old man was still smiling. He wanted Gavin to hit him. He knew that if he did, there was no way Colt could get out of arresting him for it tonight with all of these witnesses. It was several tense seconds later, but Gavin ultimately let him go. He made sure to pull back hard enough so the momentum sent Tuck sprawling on his ass on the ground beside the tree. He turned around and stopped to put his hand against Brance’s shoulder for a second until he felt his friend relax a little bit. “Not tonight,” he told him. Without looking at anyone else, he walked away.